Man Shot, Injured by Police

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An unidentified man was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries after being shot by a police officer on Thursday night, police said.

At 8:06 p.m. on Thursday, four plainclothes officers approached two suspects they believed to be gang members near 14th Street and South Van Ness Avenue, according to Sgt. Michael Andraychak of the San Francisco Police Department. The two suspects ran for approximately one block near 14th and Minna streets, then one of them pointed a Tec-9 pistol at one of the officers, Andraychak said.

“The officer fired two shots, fearing for his life,” he said.

The four plainclothes officers were from the gang task force and the probation department, Andraychak said.

The injured suspect was taken to San Francisco General Hospital and the other was detained by the SFPD, Andraychak said. It is not known whether the suspect fired a shot at the officer.

28 Comments

This reads like a press release. It’s the exact same information available on the Examiner. Why did the police believe this person was a gang member? Why did SFPD deploy riot police in the Mission, an amount later described by another officer as “overkill”, several times in excess of the number of protesters described in the linked story? Why were BART police placed on alert? What “increased violence” was the spokeperson from SFPD referring to? Please answer these questions if you can, and please independently confirm the “none life threatening injuries” sustained by the person shot by the police officer.

If you live in the neighborhood or spend any time in the neighborhood the answers would seem quite common sense… but sure go ahead and be skeptical. Here are the common sense answers:

1) Why did police believe they were gang members? Gang members are well known to police and locals. In fact SFPD used to play soccer with MS13. They also wear gang colors and throw gang signs. The fact that the guy was carrying a Tech9 just proves the fact, and it’s a good thing the police were doing their job using their skills of observation, which they are trained to do, in order to ID dangerous criminals (which in this case, they obviously did).

2) Why did SFPD deploy riot police? Because last time OccupySF folks and their anti-police cohorts (black bloc) started a little “protest” in the neighborhood, they rampaged through the streets and caused a lot of damage to residents cars and businesses. The police caught a lot of flack for it, so this time they wanted to be prepared. Last time they just stood by while “protestors” smashed windows, etc., including those on the police station.

3) BART police were placed on alert for the same reasons the police were — protestors have been known to rampage through BART stations as well.

Exactly what i was thinking! The riot cops showed up to 16th and mission open mic night we hold every thursday and surrounded us in riot gear and a mass majority of the people there did not know what was going on. We were sitting it a circle listening to poetry about unity and they surrounded us. Talk about overkill. They looked like a bunch of government paid bullys to me, made me feel infringed upon.

Exactly… these protestors will protest anything. They even protested the shooting of Kenneth Wade Harding who shot himself while fleeing firing wildly at the cops (and, who, by the way, also allegedly shot a pregnant woman in another state and pimped out a teenage girl). People, these criminals that cops shoot every once in a while are not just innocent civilians walking down the street when they got shot, they’re dangerous criminals with firearms. Far more killings are done by the criminals themselves — how about go over to the hospital and protest this fool walking around with a Tech9 in our neighborhood.

Marco, it’s true that people in the Bay Area are quick to be self-righteous. But on the other hand, we have to hold both journalism and the cops up to the highest standards. The cops have murdered far too many people on thin pretexts for us to be sloppy in our coverage. The BART cops shot an unarmed kid in the back, and even with a clear video of the murder, their lawyers got his charges reduced to “negligence”. It happens all the time in poorer neighborhoods. Their lawyers write these press releases, and there slanted perspective is more egregious than the free speech and open protest we welcome in a civilized country.

Sure, we should hold everybody up to high standards. But cops and journalists are supposed to be professionals. If you are not upset about kids like Oscar Grant getting shot in the back, we have nothing to discuss. If you are not in favor of journalists having courage and integrity, and not simply taking institutional press releases from the police as objective “facts”, then we have nothing to discuss.

I live on the corner this happened, and there definitely has been an uptick in violence here. Just a couple weeks ago, on the exact corner, two warring groups were shooting at each other in the street. Knowing that there are plainclothes cops are looking out for gang members in the area seems as though they are trying to get a handle on this most recent gang violence flare that seems to happen every couple years.

I, too, would like confirmation regarding the gun and the injuries the man sustained.

The protesters who walked down the street a few hours after the shooting, are not people I recognize or seem to have any affiliation with the residents here. There presence was dark and disturbing.

I’m glad that the cops are doing their best and being successful at catching gang-members. Too bad we have morons for citizens who would rather get shot by useless gang-scum than let the police do their job.

Hurray for the cops. we should be thanking them. IF we had twice as many police on the streets of the mission, it would be a better place.

stooopid people posting stooopid stuff. They should have taken the guy with the TEC-9 out. Out of the gene pool, out of our city, out of the problem. Pull a gun on a cop, get shot. That’s how it works.